Alternative burqa: This is almost certainly The Stig, although you can’t be too sure.

Boris Johnson take note: This is how you satirise attitudes to burqas:

(From the Rochdale Herald)

A new experimental initiative has seen numerous British Muslim women swap their traditional full face veils for an outfit made popular by Top Gear’s “The Stig.”

The aim of the trial is to make both Muslim women and xenophobic man-babies feel more safe and comfortable going about their lives in public.

So far the results have been positive. An anonymous test group of women in dangerous no-go-zone Luton reported dramatic changes to the way they were approached in the street.

“The same men who used to spit at me now ask me to sign their neck so they can get it tattooed. It feels like a minor change but the reaction couldn’t be more different. One man offered to by me a pint of lager and when I didn’t respond he just said ‘classic’ and left.”

Other suggested future experiments include dressing Jeremy Corbyn in a Gareth Southgate waistcoat and putting Tommy Robinson’s face on Halal goods.

For Mr Johnson, whose claim that Muslim women in burqas look like “letterboxes” and “bank robbers”, the future is looking a lot less cheery – and that goes for the Conservative Party, too.

The Tories appear to be imploding over the issue – which highlights genuine prejudice against a religious group, rather than the assumed prejudice in allegations of anti-Semitism against the Labour Party.

A former aide of David Cameron, Lord Cooper, and Muslim leaders have joined the chorus of condemnation against the comments, made in a Telegraph article last week. Here’s the Observer‘s piece:

A Tory peer and former aide to David Cameron [Lord Cooper] accused Boris Johnson of “moral emptiness”, casual racism and “courting fascism” as division over the former foreign secretary’s comments about Muslim women threatened to develop into a full-blown crisis for Theresa May and her party.

After Johnson, who returned from holiday abroad on Saturday, refused to apologise, Cooper said: “The rottenness of Boris Johnson goes deeper even than his casual racism and his equally casual courting of fascism. He will advocate literally anything to play to the crowd of the moment. His career is a saga of moral emptiness and lies; pathetic, weak and needy; the opposite of strong.”

An abnormal spike in anti-Muslim abuse aimed at women wearing the hijab and niqab has been recorded by the government-backed hate crime monitoring group Tell Mama.

The majority of niqab-wearing victims who have called Tell Mama’s helpline since the article appeared said the perpetrator either used phrases such as “letterbox” or referred to Johnson.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), has weighed in to say support for Mr Johnson from Tory MPs and others “shone a light on the underbelly of Islamophobia” in the party.

There seems to be evidence supporting this. Mr Johnson is, it seems, unlikely to lose the whip or face official censure as a result of the internal investigation – though he may be asked to take diversity training – an offer he seems certain to resist.

Party leader Theresa May is facing the possibility that the row will do lasting damage to Conservative-Muslim relations – but this is unlikely to bother her too much because she is herself, as we all know, deeply racist.

More concerning for Gollum is the possibility that the row will enthuse Mr Johnson’s support base for a potential leadership contest.

That would really boost the Tories, wouldn’t it? Swapping one racist for another!

And it’s easy to see where Mr Johnson gets his views:

A close friend of Johnson told the Observer that he was “as likely to ride naked down Blackfriars cycle lane waving an EU flag” as he was to apologise. His father, Stanley, writing in the Sunday Telegraph… said that his son was “spot on” in his comments on the burqa, but should have gone further and called for a ban in certain circumstances.

One wonders what this gentleman would have said while he was appearing in I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, if he had ever been confronted by an aborigine.

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